The new RMA rules, explained for dummies

Friday, 12 December 2025

Every day Kiwis come to Stuff to see what’s happening in their world. We’re committed to telling you quickly and accurately. But we’re also committed to providing nuance and context, to explain how and why things happen. Our explainer articles are all about getting to the heart of complex events and giving you reliable information. If you’ve a subject you want us to explain or fact-check, fill in the form at the bottom of this story.

On Tuesday, the Government revealed its long-awaited replacement for the Resource Management Act (RMA).

The proposed Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill - not to be confused with the previous government’s Spatial Planning Bill and Natural and Built Environment Bill - will fill the whopping 996-page hole left by the RMA.

Running to 452 and 292 pages respectively, it feels safe to assume that most Stuff readers won’t have read the proposed laws. And fair enough - there’s no shame here.

But it is important, and the public will soon have the opportunity to make select committee submissions on the proposals.

So we’ve taken it upon ourselves to break them down. Read on to understand what these changes could mean for you - from that deck you want to build, to the types of buildings you could live next to - this is RMA Reforms for Dummies.

You might be able to build that big deck after all

“Pretty much everything” will be easier, faster and cheaper under the new resource management regime, Minister for RMA Reform Chris Bishop said earlier this week.

It’s exactly what he has been striving for - a more streamlined process, a decrease in the number of consents required and an emphasis on private property rights.

It means, all going well, you might finally be able to build that deck you’ve been wanting - the one that goes all the way up to your property boundary and isn’t allowed under your current district plan.

How exactly will that work?

Well, under the existing RMA, homeowners are basically free to make improvements to their properties so long as they are “permitted” under the relevant laws and regulations. That includes the local district plan.

However, there are more than 100 district plans across New Zealand and they are incredibly prescriptive. That means there are many, many things that are controlled or restricted, and therefore not permitted.

It differs from place to place, but they might include building a fence over 1.8m, adding a storey that exceeds a certain height limit, or adding a structure that gets too close to the property’s boundary.

In the planning world, they talk about a “building envelope”. District plans tend to allow homeowners to do what they like within that “envelope”, but anything outside of it requires a consent. They’re designed to protect your neighbours’ property rights as well as yours - so you can’t build too high or too close to their fence and nosy into their living room, for example.

A lot of the time when you’re trying to do something outside of that envelope, immediate neighbours will be notified and have an opportunity to write a submission to the council as part of the consent process. That means they could point out that you would end up watching them watch TV in the evenings.

For you, as the person wanting to add a storey, that’s really annoying. But for the neighbour, it’s great.

So, here’s where things are changing a bit.

Essentially, the new laws are taking more of a “top-down” approach. This means the point at which people will have the chance to share their views will happen a lot earlier.

As Bishop has emphasised repeatedly this week, the new bills are designed to be more centralised and streamlined. The 100+ district plans will be replaced by regional plans, and central government will have a lot more say in how our communities will look.

In practice, that means local councils will still be required to produce land use plans - like district plans - but these will follow standardised provisions set by the Government.

For every zone that a land use plan might have, central government will have written the rules that apply to properties within it.

It is the councils’ job to decide which zones go where. But they won’t be able to change the rules that apply to each one. That means if you, as a resident, want to have a say on what rules should apply, you need to do that while the Government is setting them - currently expected to be late next year.

There will be some scope for councils to include “bespoke” provisions, but these will be limited to situations involving specific local conditions or values that a community might want to protect.

This does mean that we don’t know yet exactly what the Government is planning, in terms of how liberal or restrictive it wants to be. The new bills establish the framework, next year will be about setting the rules.

But we do know the Government plans to set rules that reduce the need for resource consents. Bishop has said about 46% of activities that currently need a consent, won’t under the new regime.

That means that the deck you want? The one that goes right up to your fence line? Depending how you’re zoned, you’re far more likely to be able to get on with it.

Don't like your neighbour’s project? Too bad

Nearly everyone that Stuff spoke to for this explainer described the regime as a “double-edged sword”.

As one expert described it: “We don't like having restrictions on our property. But we do quite like having restrictions on the neighbours.”

That’s because while your neighbour is celebrating the sale of their property to a developer, you might be despairing. The developer plans to bowl their house and build a block of apartments - and there’s nothing you can do about it.

This comes back to the point of more and more things being permitted under the new regime. Under the current RMA, the developer would need to obtain a resource consent.

Under the proposed laws - depending on the rules the Government sets for the zone - it’s far more likely these sorts of developments will be allowed as of right.

Make sense?

And remember, it’s not just about additions to houses. Currently, if a childcare centre or McDonald’s restaurant want to move into an empty section on your street, they probably need a resource consent. And you might have the opportunity to dispute it.

Depending how the Government sets the rules down the line, you might not have that opportunity going forward.

Red tape still in your way? You might get compensation

We’ve traversed the Government’s intention with these laws pretty well so far - allow more development, reduce the red tape.

But there are five things that have been singled out as warranting additional regulation. These are:

• Significant historic heritage

• Outstanding natural landscapes or features

• Sites of significance to Māori

• Areas of high natural character in the coastal environment (wetlands, lakes, rivers, etc.)

• Indigenous biodiversity

Basically, the Government’s new regime recognises the importance of these five things to society - and it’s offering an avenue to protect them. But it has also recognised the potential impacts on private property rights.

So, if a council decides to apply a protection to properties containing any of these five attributes, it can (if it can justify it by referring to data and evidence). But the council might have to offer the property owner some compensation.

That’s not necessarily monetary compensation - although it could be. It could include granting additional development rights elsewhere on the property, or on another property owned by the same landowner.

To give an example, one of the additional regulations could be a requirement that the owner of any building with significant historic heritage has to obtain a resource consent before doing any work. The council could then waive the resource consent fees as compensation.

Or that landowner could be required to keep the historic external façade, even while otherwise altering the building. The council may then have to compensate them with additional rights elsewhere or through a rates waiver, for example.

At the end of the day, it will come down to communities to decide how much they value these protections - and whether they want to pay for it. Local authorities are operating in a constrained fiscal environment, and it may become less attractive to ratepayers down the line to fund these additional protections.

There’s a lot more to these proposals - this explainer for dummies has barely touched the surface. Fill out the form below if there’s more you want explained.